Diagrams 2010

Workshop on Diagrams in Education
Call for Papers

Diagrams are ubiquitous in human problem-solving and communication. The success of diagrammatic representations over symbolic/linguistic representations in certain domains is due to the fact that diagrams capture some of the underlying spatiality of the domain, either because the structure of the domain is itself spatial or because it is homomorphic to 2-D space. In either case there is a mapping from aspects of the domain to the domain of diagrams. This mapping, in conjunction with efficient routines that extract information from diagrams as well as modify them, makes diagrammatic representations a powerful tool.

Education or instruction is a special case of communication with challenging demands on the instructor. In this setting, communication generally consists of the transfer of information about the structures and processes of a physical or abstract domain to the student. From an instructional perspective then, it is important to understand why and how diagrammatic representations can facilitate this communication. Additionally, given the various differences between diagrammatic and linguistic representations, including their dimensionality, holistic nature, varying levels of abstraction and iconicity, it is also important to understand how these differences, either in combination or individually, enable diagrammatic representations to be a better medium for instruction in appropriate domains.

The scope of this workshop covers all areas of diagram use in education. Relevant issues include (but are not limited to) the differences between diagram use in education vs their use in reasoning, aspects of effective diagram construction for instructional purposes, the influence of the domain (expert-to-novice transfer of information) on diagram construction and the spatial features (and temporal features in the case of animated diagrams) that are important in this domain.

This will be a half-day workshop. There will be two sessions of an hour and a half each with a break in between. The format will include an invited talk from a distinguished researcher in the field but consist mostly of short presentations from the authors of the accepted papers. Each session will also have a panel (of the session’s presenters) that will answer questions from the audience.

Submissions
We invite contributions on recent work (including work in progress) in this area. Interested participants must submit a 2-page abstract by the submission deadline (April 9, 2010) using the EasyChair conference system. Accept/Reject notifications will go out May 7, 2010.

Important Dates
Submission: April 9, 2010
Notification: May 7, 2010
Workshop: Aug 9, 2010

Workshop Organizers
Unmesh Kurup, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
B. Chandrasekaran, The Ohio State University, USA

Programm Committee
Dave Barker-Plummer, Stanford University, USA
Andrew Fish, University of Brighton, UK
Richard Lowe, Curtin University of Technology, Australia

For more information, contact diagrams2010@diagrams-conference.org